Lancaster to establish taught course centre for PhDs in Operational Research

Lancaster University is set to establish a UK-wide taught course centre for PhD students in Operational Research (OR), funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Lancaster will be working in close co-operation with other leading UK providers of advanced training in OR to develop a programme of distance learning and residential courses for PhD students in their first two years of study. Support for this initiative from the wider OR community has been expressed through a collaboration with the Operational Research Society.

The call from EPSRC which offered pump priming funding to establish such centres was in response to concerns expressed by the International Review of Mathematics about the lack of breadth and depth of the UK PhD in the mathematical sciences.

Professor Kevin Glazebrook who works in both the department of Management Science and in the department of Maths and Statistics at Lancaster will direct the centre called NATCOR – A National Taught Course Centre in Operational Research.

The grant (£240K) is for five years and supports the costs of course development, student attendance at courses and managing the centre.

Professor Glazebrook said : “This is a wholly novel initiative for the UK in this area and I hope it will lead to a considerable strengthening of PhD programmes to the long term benefit of UK research in OR.”